100 Insights ....or 100 things with which to waste your time....

This post was inspired by Trin. Some of these took a lot of thought, others are silly fillers; but altogether I think they accurately represent me.

1. I dislike cartoons. Not only do I despise their violence, but I also find them boring, pointless, and a tremendous waste of time.
2. I could watch home improvement television all day long.
3. I want to design my own home, inside and out, drafting the architecture, painting the walls, and choosing the curtains. Anything that I can do, or learn to do without breaking something, I want to do with my own two hands.
4. I do NOT have a green thumb. I have killed every plant I've ever tried to keep alive.
5. I fear that my ability to care for plants may be a reflection of my ability to raise future children.
6. I want a whole slew of children. When I was a young teenager I wanted 15 children. Although I've adopted a more realistic view of this matter, I will never set a limit on the size of my future family.
7. I am always conscious of my height. I despise being tall despite all the beauty stereotypes surrounding stature.
8. I have a habit of slouching. Perhaps because I want to be shorter. I hate this habit and am trying to change it.
9. I love alliteration. It comes naturally to me (perhaps a few too many children's books and songs?) and I often find it difficult to avoid.
10. I habitually apologize for everything, even when I'm not sorry.
11. I worry what others will think of me. I also want those around me to be comfortable. These characteristics are probably contributing reasons for my constant apologies.
12. I abhor indecisiveness. I would rather be apologized to afterwards for a mistake than wait forever while a decision is being avoided.
13. I have an extremely difficult time saying 'no', especially to a request stemming from true need. It doesn't matter whether or not I have any confidence in my actual ability to assist, I will try to help anyway.
14. As a child I wanted to be a ballerina, an ice skater, or an actress.
15. I now secretly wish to be a designer or a photographer.
16. I miss playing the flute regularly although I still loathe the competitive field of music.
17. I want to inspire someone, someday, to write a song about me.
18. You will have a hard time convincing me that I'm an adult; I still feel closer to an awkward adolescent most of the time.
19. I have always wanted the length of my hair to reach my waist. Living in China has only reinforced this desire.
20. I am a daydreamer. I often find my mind drifting from its present task to Neverland.
21. I have never verbally or physically fought with anyone other than my family. I think I am afraid to yell at others out of worry that they will leave forever.
22. I have a fear of being left.
23. I think that part of my yearning to travel is out of a curiosity to know who will miss me.
24. I have slept in a full size bed since childhood. When sleeping in a twin bed, I have on multiple occasions found myself on the floor or awoken myself when smacking the wall. I like my space when I'm sleeping and I do not sleep as well if my freedom to move, roll, turn and/or kick is restricted by bed size or another's company. Nor does such company sleep well (sorry Li'l Sis!)
25. I have given up attempting to step out of the academic shadow of my younger sister. She is much smarter than I.
26. When I am nervous I can't sit still. I will fidget with anything around me.
27. I don't like leading in a group of adults, but if no one else will step up to the plate, I feel it is my duty to speak.
28. If I ask you to leave, I really want you to stay. I'm just testing you to see if you have the strength to handle my tears.
29. I'm hyper sensitive to most smells, especially distasteful ones.
30. If I dislike a food, it's most likely due to the texture rather than the taste. And I gag easily.
31. I hate canceling an appointment. Even if I am too busy, tired or ill, I will make every effort to withhold a social engagement.
32. I can't cook. I pretend that I want to learn, but really I would be completely satisfied never having to cook anything, ever.
33. I love to bake. I love almost anything sweet and, even more than consuming sweets myself, I enjoy sharing such goodies with friends.
34. My favorite children's author is Patricia Polacco. I cannot, however, read her books aloud for an audience (even children) since the majority of her stories make me cry.
35. I have cried more when reading simple children's stories than any adult novel I've ever read. There's something about the simplicity and rawness of emotion in children's books that is absent, hidden, or complicated in adult writing.
36. Shopping will almost always cheer me up: unless I have no money to buy things and then I just get depressed.
37. I secretly wonder how many people would attend my funeral and what would be said about me if I died tomorrow.
38. I wish I could have lived 100 years ago as a Southern Belle.
39. Despite all the blessings I grew up with, I do not look back at my childhood as a happy period of my life.
40. I wish I could paint or draw, rather than simply photograph the visual images that so often capture my eye.
41. The inability to live two lives, have two careers, make completely opposite choices, and know the other side of things frustrates me.
42. I sometimes think that I am only following the role others expect me to fill. What choices would I make if there were no expectations of me?
43. Part of me wants to be an Edina soccer mom, having lunch at D'Amico & Sons, driving an SUV, and entering my maid-cleaned house in Better Homes & Gardens.
44. I will NOT home school my children.
45. I sweat a lot.
46. I have had plastic surgery. I was five and it wasn't for shallow aesthetic reasons.
47. If I am not immediately good (or at least moderately proficient) at something new, I typically quit.
48. I have no motivation to exercise.
49. I have only a few friends I still communicate with from junior high and high school. I have no friends from before 4th grade with whom I have kept in contact.
50. I wish my family had more family and cultural traditions. I'm often tempted to create a few, especially for my future family.
51. Every Christmas morning I sing "Happy Birthday" to baby Jesus in the nativity scene. There's usually a donut and a candle involved.
52. I still bite my nails when I'm nervous - especially during movies.
53. I love to crochet. I think it calms my nerves.
54. I will never again crochet a scarf for someone I'm dating. EVER. There is statistical proof that crocheting or knitting a scarf for your guy will make him your guy no longer. Ask my sister and all of her roommates. I am so sure of this curse that I wouldn't even make one for my husband after marriage. If you want a scarf from me, you'd better be satisfied with a friendship.
55. I hate the zoo.
56. If I wear my hair curly it typically means I woke up late. Either that or the humidity has taken control of the curl beyond the ability of my straightening iron.
57. I scar easily. And by easily I mean that if there's a surface scrape on my hand, it will most likely turn into a scar. For that reason, I hate the sight of my hands.
58. I only like to drive when I'm alone. Otherwise, I'd much rather prefer to hand the keys over and be chauffeured.
59. Whenever I get the hic-ups, I always have three separate spells of them during that same day.
60. I love the smell of campfires, and I will avoid washing any jeans or sweatshirts that hold this scent.
61. I also love the smell of boy and if borrowed from a guy, shirts or sweatshirts will also be delayed from a washing.
62. I still have hope of learning the piano again some day.
63. I can be both a night owl and an early bird, just not at the same time.
64. I get most of my work done either early in the morning or late at night.
65. I am extremely inflexible physically but with my schedule I like to have spontaneous changes.
66. I could spend hours looking at pictures of people I don't even know and even more time if someone is narrating the scenes for me.
67. Sunset walks on the beach are nice, but a walk through warm rain is even better.
68. I don't particularly care for food. There are things I enjoy the taste of, but if I could go through life without hunger, I wouldn't miss eating.
69. Since I don't like food, I will not be impressed with a fancy restaurant, high prices, and unpronounceable menus. Such establishments actually make me extremely uncomfortable as I try to remember where my elbows should not be, assess whether my attire is suitable in the surrounding company, and eat slowly enough to appear as though I'm too weak to hold my fork.
70. I am terrible at remembering names.
71. I also fail miserably when learning other languages.
72. Despite not understanding other languages, I want to travel; a lot.
73. I cannot take a short nap. A nap for me is at least an hour of sleep. Perhaps this is because it takes me a long while to relax enough to fall asleep.
74. I hate doing the dishes. It's even worse when there's no hot water to do them in and the rag smells of mold. My strategy is, instead of cleaning two dishes at a time, let them pile up and do them all at once while listening to something uplifting. I sometimes excuse this strategy with a valid complaint about the wastefulness of soap when cleaning dishes one at a time, but really I just don't like cleaning them.
75. I enjoyed the janitor job I had for a month so much more than I expected.
76. More often than I should, I get lost in the 'what ifs' of the past. Where would I be now if I had played in the orchestra in H.S.? Swam more than one season on the swim team? Not gone to private school?
77. I've been cheated on twice; by two separate guys I've dated.
78. I've dated four people, five if you count emotional dating.
79. Here in China, where women typically marry the first guy they date, I feel even more used.
80. Fiction books are my favorite books to read. Ones where you can get lost in the protagonist's life, pretend it is your own, and escape your troubles for a while even if you are just trading them in for new ones the character has. It's always easier to solve another's problems anyways.
81. I despise reality television.
82. Even though I don't want to, I can get hooked to a soap opera.
83. I'm a sci-fi fan.
84. During high school I had a very unhealthy addiction to The X-Files.
85. My eye twitches an abnormally excessive amount. And it's only my left eye.
86. I've never enjoyed reading the newspaper.
87. Most magazines make me sick. Except for Better Homes and Gardens. Then I think of my grandmother and my mother and my house-to-be.
88. Even though it's a twisted, odd, and grotesque movie, there's something that I like about The Piano. (Not to be confused with The Pianist which is also a disturbing movie due to it's incomprehensibly accurate depiction of history.)
89. I don't like politics. I typically don't understand such things and the more I learn only causes me more despair over the lack of change I could ever cause.
90. I'm sick of thinking about myself. A list about one's self is a lot harder to compile than it seems. Writing it has made me aware of how self-centered I am.
91. Although I have an abundance of patience for children, I have none for ignorant adults.
92. I have fractured the same arm twice.
93. I like dancing when I have a good partner who wants to dance with only me. Otherwise I feel clumsy, ungraceful and undesired.
94. I worry often of how I will support my parents and how soon that day may come.
95. I get migraines when I'm tired.
96. I have a migraine now.
97. I often wonder if we'll ever learn the effect each person passing through our life has had on us, and what effect we've had on others.
98. I worry that the positive impact I am striving hard to leave on other's lives will actually negatively affect them.
99. Coconut added to anything almost always improves it; especially if that something is chocolate or coffee. I miss Caribou Coffee.
100. I despise letters, emails, and even text messages with poor or absent capitalization and punctuation, not to mention an abundance of spelling errors. Proof-read people; out of respect for your reader, take the extra minute it takes to reread your writing! (And with that said, I'm going to look back over these 100 things to make sure I haven't made any mistakes! If you find one, I'll gladly fix it!)